Victory in Alaska -- bag tax defeated!
The news is in from Juneau: on October 4, voters overwhelmingly defeated a 15-cent tax on plastic grocery bags. Thousands of people went to the polls, and nearly 70 percent of them said no to unfair, short-sighted taxes on a product they use every day.
And Juneau isn't the only city to stand up against taxes and bans on bags. All across America, voters are speaking out against anti-bag activists who want to eliminate choice at the grocery store. Momentum is growing, and we're having an impact—legislators and citizens alike are listening to the real facts about plastic grocery bags.
Here are just a few recent examples of defeated taxes and bans. If you're ready to speak out against these needless laws, sign our petition today to get started.
OREGON
Oregon's senate considered a full ban on plastic bags and a tax on paper bags earlier this year. After months of conversation, the bill stalled on the Senate floor without even coming to a floor vote.
Recent research indicates that Oregon's citizens didn't want a bag ban or tax, either.1 In a January statewide survey, Oregonians preferred compromise legislation that would include a statewide recycling campaign for plastic bags over a ban by a margin of 63 percent to 24 percent.
SEATTLE
Even though their City Council previously approved the law, in August of 2009, Seattle's voters turned out in droves to reject a 20 cent bag tax. The tax wasn't limited to grocery stores—it would have charged residents for each paper and plastic bag they used at drug stores and convenience stores, too.
According to the Seattle Post Intelligencer, the bag tax would've cost Seattle's residents more than $3 million annually and cost $1.5 million to implement in the first 18 months alone.2
JUNEAU
Juneau's newly-defeated bag tax would have forced residents to pay a 15 cent tax on every plastic grocery bag they used at stores like Fred Meyer, Safeway and Walmart. What's more, none of the funds gathered from this tax would have gone to cleaning up Alaska—100 percent of the bag tax would have been sent straight into the city's general fund.
That's one of the reasons why Juneau voters defeated their proposed bag tax; the "no" votes outnumbered "yes" votes by a more than two to one margin.
- GS Strategy Group Oregon State Survey - Jan 17-18, 2011; 500N/4.38 percent Margin of Error(+)Oversample of state excluding Multnomah County, 300N/3.7 percent total Margin of Error
- Seattle says 'no' to grocery bag tax - Seattle Post-Intelligencer, August 18, 2009